This panel suggests some of the strengths which graduates drew from the Naval Academy and which served them well all their professional lives, whether in the armed services or in business and other environment of the Academy in which midshipmen who used slide rules for calculations and mechanical analog computers for computing gun orders were nevertheless prepared to deal with the amazing technological advances which took place during the Cold War years. The Naval Academy prepared graduates to provide technological as well as military leadership in winning the Cold War. The academic foundation provided by the Naval Academy enabled graduates then and now to master the complexities of the computer and information age, and to lead subordinates in the application of new technology. The consistent ability of our nation to stay ahead of the Soviet Union in the development and application of technology forced a series of Communist Leaders to realize that they could not compete with us successfully, and was a major contributor to the successful outcome of the war.
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